Nevertheless, the interview raised some interesting questions about the role of the overprotective father: how far is too far to go to protect your daughter?

Even if he didn't go quite as far as installing the camera (it’s unclear as to whether the fiery chef was just 'having a laugh'), Ramsay clearly felt strongly enough about his daughter's relationship that he thought it appropriate to make the joke on national television, before growling at her boyfriend to keep his hands to himself.

I don't think that anyone would condemn Ramsay for wanting to protect his daughter from getting hurt – which is, presumably, what he is attempting to do, albeit in a bullish and painfully clumsy way. On balance, being overprotective is probably preferable to taking no interest in a child's wellbeing. But throwing his weight around, scowling at potential suitors and embarrassing her publicly is neither healthy nor helpful.

It's a common trope: the man who'd rather lock his daughter in a tower until she's 40 than have to watch some hormone-ravaged 17-year-old paw at her. It reflects an insidious and damaging need to control young women's behaviour, long after we abandoned the idea that a daughter is her father's property.

The Times' Kevin Maher wrote yesterday in response that nothing is "more likely to arouse our anger, our indignation, and our unfettered skull-crunching rage than a perceived and sexualised threat... to the purity and innocence of our daughters." The preoccupation with "purity and innocence" makes me shudder; I doubt either of these men would talk about their sons in the same way, and it veers dangerously close to slut shaming territory.

Now, I understand that for some men, their caution comes from experience. As Maher wrote: "The reason that we hate these sweaty, suppurating, sex-obsessed yobs is because they are us."

Maher and Ramsay may well know what it's like to be a 15-year-old boy battling with raging hormones; but at risk of stating the obvious, clearly neither has any idea what it's like to be a 15-year-old girl. The idea that only boys are interested in sex is naive and anachronistic at best.

Perhaps they are right to worry, though, when teenage boys are consistently told that that's how they should behave. Young men are surrounded by messages that say they are entitled to sex, while women are reprimanded simultaneously for being either slutty or frigid.

It goes without saying that this is a double standard parents should hope not to pass onto their children. But if a father can't ban his daughter from all contact with men until she's exited her teenage years, how can he protect her from getting hurt? Talking would be a good place to start: teach her that she has the right to decide who she does and doesn't sleep with, and her sexual behaviour does not dictate her worth. One of the best things a father can do is to talk to his children empathetically about the pressures they face.

I say 'children' because he should talk to his sons, too: playing the violently overprotective father does them little credit by reinforcing the idea that young men are incapable of controlling themselves sexually. I'd like to think that if Ramsay is so concerned with the moral character of teenage boys, he'll take the time to teach his son to treat women with empathy and respect rather than objectifying them, and that he is not defined by the number of women he sleeps with.

It's about time we abandoned the image of the jealous, overprotective father with the shotgun across his knee. If you want to protect your daughters and sons, Gordon, then the best way to do it is not to film, shield or cajole them, but to educate them. You can only keep the sexes apart for so long.